


Connection, Over Wire and Static

by bar2d2s



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: M/M, Spoilers for Season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-28 22:28:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13913490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bar2d2s/pseuds/bar2d2s
Summary: Loss hits fast and hard, straight to the heart. Create new bonds, feed them, let them grow.Takes place post-DUME.





	Connection, Over Wire and Static

After their mission went…the way it did, Hera isolated herself. Her grief was private, and intense, and no one could blame her for wanting to be alone. Ezra vanished. He wasn’t the kid they’d accidentally adopted anymore, and even if he wasn’t in the best state, he could take care of himself. Zeb and Sabine went on a mission of their own and once they’d returned, Sabine decided to let her emotions channel themselves into her work. Zeb pitied the poor bucket heads that’d eventually be on the receiving end. But at the same time, he knew he needed to keep it together. That at least one of them needed to stand tall and strong, and as the tallest and strongest, of course it would have to be him.

Zeb locked himself in the cockpit of their stolen ship, and hailed Yavin IV.

“Who is this? How did you get access to this line?” He hadn’t asked the Ashla for anything, yet it had heard his prayers anyway. “Hello? You have five seconds to respond.” Zeb cleared the lump from his throat.

“Hey, Kal.” His voice sounded too rough, as if he’d been yelling for hours. “Zeb here, calling from Lothal. We’re- nevermind that. How are things? AP-5 isn’t giving you too much trouble, is he?” There was a pause on the other end of the line.

“…no, he hasn’t been complaining much more than usual. Zeb, what’s-”

“And Rex, he and the other troopers, they’ve been training those new kids up right, haven’t they? I hear we’ve been getting plenty of Imperial Academy recruits, I just wanna make sure that they, that they know how to protect themselves.”

“Everyone is fine on this end, Zeb. Mon Mothma and Senator Organa have been gathering support from planets all over the system, now what is going-”

“And what about you?” Zeb interrupted. “They’re treating you alright, I hope? We didn’t mean to recruit you and ditch you, but you. You know how war is.” They hadn’t  _really_ done that, of course. He and Hera had spent plenty of time acquainting Kallus with others in the rebellion, catching him up on the things that the Empire was intentionally blocking, and just. Getting to know each other. Really discovering the man who tore down his entire life after one night on a frozen moon. Zeb found that he liked him an awful lot.

“Garazeb. What happened?” Zeb went silent. He was quiet for so long, Kallus felt the need to restate his question several times, as well as test the line to see if they’d been cut off. “Zeb. Please. Don’t keep me in the dark like this.”

“Hera was captured.” His voice was low, hollow. He heard Kallus’ sharp inhale. “We launched a mission to get her back. It was successful.”

“Well that’s…good, isn’t it?” Kallus was tentative in his answer, as if bracing for the other boot to drop.

“Kanan is dead.”

If Kallus replied, it was lost on him. Saying those words, it made them real. Kanan was dead. He wasn’t captured, or hiding. Waiting for them to find him. He wasn’t meditating outside, or coming up with a plan of action in his room on the Ghost. He wasn’t with them anymore. He was gone. He was never coming back.

“-eb? Zeb? Are you still there? Zeb? Zeb I need you to answer me soon, or I’ll be forced to close the line.”

“I’m here.” He sounded rougher than ever. “What more do I need to say to keep you on the line, Kal?” Zeb needed him to understand. Kallus was a warrior too, but more than that, he was the only person that really knew him not currently crippled with grief.

“Just…respond every so often. A word or two, so I know I’m not talking to dead air.”

And so, Kallus talked. He talked long into the night, stopping every now and then to listen for Zeb’s meager replies. He talked about the base, and how more people from different worlds were showing up every day. He talked about the squadrons that had been forming within their ranks. He talked about how the oppressive humidity on the planet’s surface after a particularly bad rainfall was making him long to return to cooler climates.

“Like Bahryn?” Zeb asked dryly, and Kallus choked on a laugh.

“Nothing that extreme, I assure you.” He hesitated, choosing his next words carefully. “I never thanked you, you know. For setting me down the right path.” Zeb scoffed, shaking his head before remembering that Kallus couldn’t see him.

“You spent close to a year keeping the Empire off my back any way you could, I’d say we’re even.” Kallus was quiet for a while, the longest he’d been since the start of their transmission. “Kal?” A soft hum told him that they hadn’t gotten cut off. “I mean it, you’re doing good work for the rebellion. Most everyone has come around on you.”

“Yes well, because I have you vouching for me. I simply meant that for ah, expanding my worldview, I should have at least taken you out for a drink.”

Zeb’s ears folded back of their own accord. “Kal-”

“I know this isn’t the time!” The human exclaimed, immediately backtracking. “There’s a war going on, and everything just…happens so much, and so quickly. We’ve only just lost a brother in arms. But loss puts so many things into perspective. I joined the Empire because I wanted to bring order to a chaotic universe. I rebelled in hopes of restoring the free will that I had helped subjugate and outright destroy.”

Kallus had told him this before, one late night while he was still in that manic post-defection stage. The rest of the base was down for the count, but he couldn’t sleep. The starlight had given his bruised face a softer look, and Zeb hadn’t been able to help thinking that at last, the child had saved the warrior.

“Any day could be the last. And I’m not leaving this life regretful of things I could have changed.”

This is all eerily similar to a dream he’d had, shortly after finding out who their new Fulcrum was. In it, they had been back on Bahryn, standing opposite each other with the crater between them. All that space in the way, and yet they still tried to talk, to communicate. Zeb had felt desperate to know this man in that dream, and now it seemed like he might not have been very far off at all.

There was a lump in his throat that hadn’t been there before, and it took a few tries to clear it.

“D'you think, I mean. It’s not too late for us, is it?” A universe away, Kallus hesitated. But only briefly.

“We’re still alive, aren’t we?” The laughter bubbles up unbidden, tasting sour in his mouth. He feels manic, but it’s just the adrenaline combining with the lack of sleep.

“So we are.” Zeb finally agrees. “And once we’ve taken back Lothal, I’m holding you to that drink.” Maybe even against several doors and walls, he doesn’t say, but the implication made its way through, if Kallus’ soft gasp was read right.

“I’d like that. Very much.” He replied, the line starting to flicker. “Oh, I seem to be picking up some interference. There might be Imperial scanners in the area.”

“Cut the line” Zeb said, but it didn’t come off as gruffly as he thought it would. “I’m gonna go scout the area, make sure we didn’t pick up any tails.”

Before the communicator cut completely, Kallus managed to get one last thought out:

“Zeb? If you can still hear this, be safe. And hurry back to me.” Zeb hit the communicator a few times as Kallus' voice faded to static, to see if it was just a faulty connection, but no. There were definitely scanners passing, he'd need to rouse the camp and get them ready for whoever might be in the area.

 _Hurry back to me_ , Kallus had said. As if he already felt entitled to Zeb's time. As if the connection they'd started building on a frozen moon over a dead world had only continued to grow, even while spending all these months apart. Zeb smiled to himself, glad no one was around to see it because if it looked as shy and nervous as he felt it did...oh, but that did scream trouble.

 _Hurry back to me_.

He intended to.


End file.
